Stark heard the calls while she was outside her East Bank Street home near Mohawk Avenue. Her house is about three-quarters of a mile from the spot where 45 minutes later rescuers pulled a shivering Kelly Milam of Fond du Lac from the icy waters of Lake Winnebago just north of Frazier Drive at the western reaches of Lakeside Park.

Milam’s snowmobile had broken through thin ice on the lake 30 to 45 minutes earlier.

Stark could hear the cries for help even after she went back inside her house. She wasn’t sure if she was hearing things, so she decided to ask her neighbor, Treptow, if he could hear anything.

“We heard (the cries) coming from the direction of the ice,” Stark said.

The two got in a vehicle and drove toward the lake and then through the park until they could pinpoint the source of the screams.

“It was crazy,” Treptow said. “I could just see a blob out there and it looked like someone was in the water trying to hold on to the ice.”

Stark called 911. She also told Milam to hang on because help was on the way.

“When he kept yelling ‘help,’ I could hear the fear in his voice,” she said.

Treptow said it was about 45 minutes from the time he first heard the call for help and the time rescue officials arrived.

Rescued

Milam was pulled from the frigid water about 250 yards offshore between Frazier Point and the pavillion in Lakeside Park. Fond du Lac County Sheriff’s Dept. Lt. Bill Tadych said Milam was found in open water where warm water is discharged from the Wastewater Treatment Plant.

“There’s approximately a 100-square-foot area of open water and he was on the far east edge of that,” Tadych said. “Apparently he had been traveling (on his snowmobile) in an area that was unfamiliar to him and broke through the thin ice. (Milam) was in water approximately 5 to 6-feet deep — deep enough to kill a person.”

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Milam was rescued by Fond du Lac firefighters and taken to St. Agnes Hospital for severe hypothermia and other non-life threatening injuries. A hospital spokesperson said the hospital had no record that Milam was treated at St. Agnes.

“He was so cold that he was unable to provide us much information at the time, so the Sheriff’s Office was unsure if another passenger or snowmobile had been traveling with him at the time he went into the water,” said Fond du Lac County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Renee Schuster. Officers later learned Milam had left home alone that night traveling down the Fond du Lac River to get out to the lake.

Tadych said ice conditions on the lake off Frazier Point are “marginal” at best.

“There are a lot of unknown conditions on the lake due to strong winds keeping the water open and then there are pressure cracks, too,” Tadych said. “It’s just unsafe. Those venturing out on the lake need to use extreme caution.”

Milam should be thankful for Stark’s sharp ears and the neighbors’ persistence in locating him, officials said.

Had Stark and Treptow not acted, Milam would have died, Fond du Lac County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Rick Olig said.

Stark and Treptow said they knew they couldn’t ignore the call for help.

“My gut feeling was that there was something wrong,” Stark said.

“We didn’t ponder whether to go out or not — we just went,” Treptow said.